Monday, 12 October 2015

Shakespeare’s Henry V at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

In 1415 a rag-tag army of Englishmen were retreating through France. After
a tougher than expected siege of Harfleur and an outbreak of dysentery, their
plans of conquest lay in tatters. On 25th October, St Crispin’s Day,
they met a French army near the castle of Agincourt. Outnumbered by the fresher
French forces, the English stood their ground and won a victory that has
resounded down the ages (largely thanks to Shakespeare). The English king eventually
married the French princess, a legend was born and a new golden age seemed to
be in the offing. As it turned out, Henry’s early death called time on the
golden age before it got going and cost his country not only France but its internal
peace as well, as the Wars of the Roses destroyed his successors.

So in Henry V Shakespeare
captures an England full of hope between the years of treason and rebellion
which marked the reigns of Henry IV and Henry VI. It is full of instantly
recognizable patriotic scenes such as the St Crispin’s Day and the ‘once more
unto the breach’ speeches, but it also occasionally expresses a darker side to
Henry’s rule. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s slippery justifications for the
invasion, Henry’s doubts before the big battle and his often quite unlikable
hypocrisy are all troubling aspects. Henry doesn’t seem to care about the death
of his old friend Falstaff and he executes old cronies Nym and Bardolph. There
is lots of thanking god, but how much is it a public act? He’s a careful
politician, so outward religiosity for the sake of morale would not be
surprising. And Henry even admits his own illegitimate right to rule, thanks to
his father’s treason against Richard II: ‘Think not upon the fault my father
did…’ However, the context of that admission is important. On the eve of
battle, all alone, Henry prays to god for his men’s safety. And there is enough
elsewhere in the play to overcome any doubts about Henry’s character. Much
of our scepticism comes from modern sensibilities perhaps alien to the original
audience. Are we perhaps too sentimental in wishing Henry would save Nym and
Bardolph? Or should we embrace a ruler who exercises justice without
favouritism? The characters in the play are unequivocal: Henry is a great and
well-loved king.

In
terms of this production, the stage set is immediately both simple and
striking. At the beginning, the backdrop is entirely removed and the backstage
area creates extra space. During the play, the backdrop occasionally appears,
via a clever guillotine device, during intimate moments (or to create Harfleur’s
walls). The stage’s floor bears an interesting pattern which, during the great
battle, is revealed as an invisible Perspex layer above a textured muddy field.
This is nicely done. It was also nice to
see a few of the cast from last year’s Two Gentlemen of Verona in minor roles. Having now seen a few RSC plays,
the return of actors from earlier productions allows one to appreciate the
actors’ impressive versatility. I suspect some of them will one day be well known.

The
most recognizable face is Oliver Ford Davies’, who plays the chorus. He got the
play rolling with his entry from the backstage area looking for like an elderly
and befuddled audience member who had taken a wrong turn. This effect is probably
calculated and he got an early laugh when he curiously picked up Henry’s crown
only to have Henry stride out and snatch it away from him. Although the main
cast wear medieval dress, Ford Davies is bedecked in brown corduroys and a blue
cardigan. He is intentionally distanced from the rest of the cast but it
doesn’t really work. Admittedly, the chorus must be a difficult part for a
modern director to pull off and Shakespeare himself wasn’t exactly keen on them.
Its origin is ancient and tragic, and its use in Henry V was perhaps intended to burnish the play’s epic quality.
But epic patriotism isn’t really the done thing for the modern intelligentsia. Ford
Davies has the odd stab at it (this is the 600th anniversary of
Agincourt, so this production has to be at least partly celebratory), but at
times he is ironic rather than patriotic and at others he is earnest but over
the top. As I’ve indicated earlier, the text at times questions the legitimacy
of Henry’s exploits, but it is done with much more subtlety than Ford Davies
musters here, veering erratically between over-gesticulating jingoism and
sardonic scepticism.

Joshua
Richards’ Fluellan is hilarious as the warm but garrulous old Welshman and Jennifer
Kirby as Kate

was also excellent. Both funny and beautiful, she balances
chastity and eager curiosity with great comic timing. In fact, the humour is
deftly handled throughout this performance. It was also good to see Jane Lapotaire
as Queen Isobel of France. She’s had some health problems but is now back on
the stage, even if the role was smaller than some she’s had in the past.

Alex
Hassell is a handsome and august Henry, but perhaps not quite tough enough and
for much of the play not quite down to earth enough. He also has a slightly
annoying tendency to address the audience instead of his fellow characters.
Presumably the director asked him to do this, and perhaps the aim is to tie the
audience more closely to the action. If so, the effort is wasted.

The
St Crispin’s Day speech should be the climax of the play:

‘From this day to the ending of
the world,

But we in it shall be
remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of
brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood
with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er
so vile,

This day shall gentle his
condition;

And gentlemen in England
now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs’d
they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap
whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint
Crispin’s day.’

Here
it is the biggest disappointment, desperate rather than inspiring. The tone is
flat and the result is anti-climactic. The courage of the men is undercut by an
attempt at comedy as Pistol almost takes up the offer to go home, and the end
of the speech is followed straightaway, almost before Henry had finished
speaking, by the announcement of a messenger’s arrival. No cheering, no signs
of grim purpose, no response at all from the army. Again, the director was
afraid to appear too patriotic. Henry is much better after the wars, and the
wooing scene with Katherine is delightful. Even if flawed in places, Hassell’s
performance contains enough to convince me that he is a fine actor, surely due
a breakout role in the near future if he turns his sights on television or
film.

Overall,
this production has a few blemishes and compares unfavourably to the year’s best Stratford performances: Volponeand The Jew of Malta. But a comparison with
those great productions is unduly harsh. For all its faults, this is an
enjoyable and thought-provoking work, with a number of standout performances.

Friday, 11 September 2015

To whet our appetite for Henry V at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, let's have a quick look at Henry IV, Part I from the BBC’s HollowCrown series (originally shown in 2012). Before Henry
V was Henry V, he was Hal, a binge-drinking hooligan trickster… or so he would
have everybody think. In fact, his plan all along was to lead a life of debauchery
and then, just when everybody had completely written him off, he would reform
and thereby dazzle people all the more with his excellence. While Hal is putting
this meticulously executed, if largely pointless, plot into effect, his father
is threatened by rebellion. The star of the rebel camp is the son Henry IV
thinks he really wants: Harry Hotspur, a dutiful son and brave warrior. Luckily
for Henry IV, his actual son comes good by the end and slaughters his spiritual brother to save the kingdom.

Tom Hiddleston as Hal is magnificent. There is a sadness
about him at even the merriest times, which

humanises him (for what short of
person would really break their father’s heart and betray his best friend, just
to make himself look better?) He’s funny too, and seems to be channelling a
little Loki as well in this performance. Simon Russell Beale is likewise wonderfully
cast: as funny a Falstaff as you could hope for, and as pitiful as a kicked do
(not that I’ve ever kicked a dog. But kicked dog seems catchier than ‘like a
dog you refuse to give a bit of your dinner to’).

The Voice: Informing and Educating

This is a beautifully made production. It’s clearly a work
of love and the BBC has invested real cash in it too. Some would perhaps use
this as an example of how wonderful the BBC is and how lost we would be without
it. Being more of a glass half empty type, I’d say that by showing they can
still make programmes which conform to the BBC’s original mission (to ‘inform,
educate and entertain’), programmes like this actually highlight just how much
complete bilge the Beeb turns out the rest of the time…

Monday, 24 August 2015

The current RSC production of Ben Jonson’s Volpone at the Swan Theatre must
rank as one of their slickest, funniest and most glorious productions yet. It
has certainly been my highlight of the year.

First, the plot. The eponymous anti-hero, Volpone (The Fox), has a lot in
common with Marlowe’s Jew of Malta. Both are charismatic and seemingly amoral
individuals with a covetous love of wealth. But both have passions which are
ultimately more powerful than their greed. Where Barabas had a pride which when
offended drove him to the most horrible acts of revenge, Volpone’s early and
enduring flaw is a need to use the greed of other wealthy men to con them out
of their possessions. As the victims of his plots are themselves so
unappealing, the audience’s sympathies cannot help but side with the flashy and
witty Volpone. The plot owes much to popular stories about wily foxes which lay
down in fields pretending to be dead. When a bird comes to feast on the corpse,
the fox springs into action and banquets on the carrion bird instead. In Volpone, the wealthy fox pretends to be

older, decrepit and close to death. His fellow grandees see an opportunity to
inherit the wealth of the childless Volpone and attempt to buy his affection
(and a place in his will) with expensive gifts. It is clear that more than
greed motivates Volpone: he glories ‘more in the cunning purchase of my wealth
than in the glad possession’. What he really enjoys is conning his ‘friends’, the
lawyer Voltore (the Vulture) and the merchants Corvino and Corbaccio (ravens).

All is going well and Volpone decides to take his plan to the next level:
his parasite Mosca encourages Corbaccio with a scheme to guarantee a place in
Volpone’s will. If Corbaccio alters his will to leave his estate to Volpone, despite
having a son of his own, then the dying Volpone will surely make Corbaccio his
heir out of gratitude. The flaw in Corbaccio’s thinking is that Volpone is
actually in the prime of life and it is Corbaccio who is the doddering old
codger. The plan is working well until Mosca lets slip to Volpone that the young wife
of Corvino is exceedingly beautiful. After going out in disguise and seeing her
for himself, Volpone develops a passion of another sort. He and Mosca fashion another
scheme so that Volpone can have his way with Celia (Rhiannon Handy). Mosca lets
Corvino know that Volpone’s doctors have suggested that sleeping with a young
maiden would aid his recovery and that by lending Volpone his wife, Corvino will guarantee himself a
place in Volpone’s will. Since Volpone is apparently a drooling, near-comatose
invalid, what could be the harm? Unfortunately for Volpone, his two clever
schemes become tangled and things begin to go awry…

The stage setting is a real treat. Volpone’s house is like a modern art
gallery, all shiny whiteness with his wealth displayed in stylish glass cases.
Volpone has a remote control on which he can turn on his CCTV when guests
arrive at his door, as well as a large digital stock market ticker surmounting
the set. The whole effect is that of a rich and discerning connoisseur. Unlike
recent RSC productions, in which the costumes have been somewhat disappointing,
in this case the stylish suits of the greedy and the outlandish attire of
Volpone’s troupe of freaks are a perfect accompaniment to the elegant set and
lively story. Volpone’s regular changes of appearance from powerful grandee to dribbling
wreck are impressive, if somewhat revolting up close (think streams of bilious
snot hanging off an old man’s chin).

Volpone’s four greedy victims are well-cast. Miles Richardson as Voltore makes
an excellent posh but amoral lawyer, Matthew Kelly as Corvino is again
excellent (following his turn as a lusty friar in the Jew of Malta) as a buffoonish no-nonsense northern businessman, Geoffrey
Freshwater as Corbaccio is likewise again excellent (following his turn as
Kelly’s equally slimy and hypocritical brother friar in the Jew of Malta) and Annette McLaughlin as Lady
Politic Would-Be plays an excellent tartish gold-digger from a slightly lower
societal echelon (Eastenders-esque). Orion
Lee’s Mosca is a model of understated, servile cunning, manipulating his social
superiors with élan. Volpone’s also gets his kicks from the entertainment
provided by

his three freaks, Androgyno the hermaphrodite (Ankur Bahl), Nano
the dwarf (Jon Key) and Castrone the eunuch (Julian Hoult). The three oddballs are
perfectly cast, exuberantly well-acted and, more than anything else, fun. I
suspect there were more than a few women in the audience jealous of Androgyno’s
graceful deportment as he sashayed confidently across the stage in his high,
high heels. Volpone is a sybarite, who needs ever wilder pleasures and takes
ever greater risks to maintain his interest in life; but the results and
accoutrements of his empty moral turpitude are a joy to behold!

More than anything, this play gives licence to its leading actor to
showcase his talents – and Henry Goodman is clearly very, very talented. The
shifts from ailing invalid to wily Machiavel are dazzling enough as displays of
raw panache, but then he takes the RSC to another place entirely in the balcony
scene. Disguised as a charismatic street vendor, adopting a thick Italian
accent and hawking his ‘miracle’ juice (‘To buy or not to buy, that is the
question…’), Volpone becomes a different kind of conman entirely, and the
results are genuinely hilarious. There was even a touch of improvisation when
Volpone interacted with an audience member and received an unexpected answer.
In the attempted seduction scene, Volpone shifts gear again and becomes an
energetic, if unsuccessful, singing Lothario. Again, credit should be given for
the set design: the neon lights, ‘sexy’ music and the bed rising through the
floor are like something from a teenage boy’s fantasy circa. 1975. Cheesy, but a
perfect match for Volpone’s animated self-confidence. Eventually, Volpone’s
tragic flaws are his need to screw over the other characters and his
overweening self-confidence. Like the Jew
of Malta’s Barabas, Volpone cannot quit while he’s ahead and he tries one
more jape out of ‘sheer wantonness’. But Goodman makes what is really an unlikely
act of hubris look entirely natural.

This production was marketed as an analogy for the greed and corruption
that is so often blamed for the 2008 financial crisis. This connection is
strained, partly because Volpone is so clearly more interested in the human
aspects of wealth acquisition (getting one over on his rivals) rather than any
City slicker hunger for big bonuses. But partly it just wouldn’t work because
the play is not a simplistic morality tale about the dangers of corporate
greed. Luckily, the marketing doesn’t match the reality and there is no
sustained attempt to stress the topicality of Volpone vis-à-vis today’s greedy
bankers. Besides the stock market tracker in his living room, Volpone’s only
business dealings are the con tricks he inflicts on his friends. Volpone might
be a bit of a Bernie Madoff, but Madoff was really a sideshow to the main
event. The other small flaw in the production is there in the original. There
is a parallel plot involving Sir Politick Would-be which has almost nothing to
do with the main story concerning Volpone and it looks like an entirely
superfluous effort to add some buffoonish humour to a play that really doesn’t
need it.

This is a high-spirited play, joyful and boisterous, but it is also
refined. The balance that has been struck between these two aspects should
probably not be a surprise from a director as renowned as Trevor Nunn and an
actor as versatile as Henry Goodman. Go and watch it.

Thursday, 13 August 2015

Fifth Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in the Reception of
the Ancient World

14th-15th
December 2015

University of
Nottingham

Abstracts
deadline: 31st August 2015

It is with great pleasure that we announce
the fifth Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in the Reception of the Ancient World. AMPRAW
2015 will be a two-day conference aiming to provide
both UK and international postgraduate students from all disciplines with the
opportunity to present their research to the growing academic community focusing
on classical reception.

This year's conference will be held from Monday 14th to Tuesday
15th December 2015 at the University of Nottingham.

We will build on the successful trend of recent AMPRAWs, and
this year the focus will be “Orthodoxy and Dissent”. This theme relates to many
aspects of reception studies, and will further widen the scope of AMPRAW into
the areas of material and visual culture, translation studies, and political
thought.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers (with a subsequent
10 minute discussion) that engage with the following key questions:

•Has there been and is there still an orthodox view(s) of the
ancient world?

•How have dissenters challenged this picture?

•Is dissent against orthodoxy essential for art?

•Do
issues of orthodoxy and dissent help to highlight or shroud issues of
contemporary discourse?

•In
what ways have the ancient world and its artefacts been used to reinforce or
challenge authority?

•Is
there an ‘orthodox’ way of teaching Classics today?

Thus far, a wide range of abstracts have been submitted,
testament to the breadth of opportunity that classical reception offers. We
would encourage abstracts focusing on any aspect of the ancient world and how
it has been received in any context since.

In addition to this year's panels, AMPRAW 2015 will feature a
keynote lecture, and practitioner-led workshops from visiting speakers. Our
exciting agenda already includes a keynote speech by Dr. Gideon Nisbet, whose
latest work has focussed on reception of epigram (including a translation of
Martial), and a workshop by Clare Pollard, the poet who recently published a
contemporary verse translation of Ovid’s ‘Heroides’. Further details and panel
topics are to follow in due course.

Evening entertainment is to be arranged for Monday 14th
December, and will be in conjunction with the Centre for Ancient Drama and its
Reception (CADRE). Bursaries may be available to conference-goers and speakers
alike, thanks to generous funding offered to us. Confirmation and details on
how to apply for this will follow in due course.

Please send your title and a 200-300 word abstract (including
your name, affiliation and level of study) to ampraw2015@gmail.com,
by the 31st
August 2015.

For up-to-date conference news and further details, please
visit our website: ampraw2015.wordpress.com and
get involved on twitter @AMPRAW2015.

Saturday, 25 July 2015

A bit of a change this week after a visit to a community production of Richard III at Leicester’s Curve
Theatre. My expectations beforehand were not especially high, but the
production gave me a number of pleasant surprises. The set had a professional
look. The industrial minimalism thing is getting a little tedious at the Royal
Shakespeare Theatre, but this looked just as good as the ones they’re churning
out in Stratford. There was an unpleasant David Lynch-esque humming sound
effect before the show started: it reminded me of the last moments of
consciousness before having a seizure, but for people without such a point of
reference it probably wasn’t so bad. An unpleasant but arresting moment occurred
at the very beginning of the play. A shirtless Richard gave his ‘winter of our
discontent’ speech and we were treated to a very realistic, scabby, sore
looking hump which a nurse then injected with a syringe. It was always unlikely
that such a great beginning could be maintained, and so it proved.

It would be harsh to single out any individual because the problems ran
through most of the cast. Many of the speeches were given at breakneck speed,
giving the impression that the lines had been learned without being understood.
This might also have been a problem caused by lack of editing: it would have
been a good idea to make a few changes here and there, but perhaps being
amateurs there was not the confidence to start messing editing the Bard. As it
was, there was too much hurried talking and not enough acting. Some of the cast
found it difficult to project their voices clearly, whilst others overacted
their scenes (my companion actually preferred the latter approach, as it at
least had the benefit of making sure you could understand what was happening). The
industrial setting sort of went with the kleptocratic Russia theme, but this
theme was only applied intermittently in costume and there was no real effort
to draw deeper parallels. Occasional fur coats, orthodox priests and
paramilitaries wandered around with a Church of England Bishop and, at the end,
a bunch of World War One Tommies. The fighting at the end perhaps went on a
little too long for a professional production, but this cast have clearly had a
lot of fun arranging the battle scenes that it is hard to begrudge them a little
fun with them.

The actor in the title role, Mark Peachey, was the highlight of the night
and, on balance, made this a pretty

good performance. I could point out that he
managed to be comprehensible without shouting every line, but this would damn him
with faint praise. In fact, his Richard was charismatic, humorous and menacing –
everything you could ask for. This was a warrior Richard, more Stannis
Baratheon than Frank Underwood. Overall, he would not have been out of place at
any of the RSC performances I’ve seen over the last couple of years: one hopes
that he soon gets a shot at acting on a stage that will do his talents more
justice.

Friday, 10 July 2015

Film Review: Great Expectations (2012)

Adaptations of classic novels inevitably confront a
dilemma; how do you maintain authenticity when reworking a slow-motion story
for an audience with a twenty-first century attention span? But the makers of the
2012 Great Expectations film had a
smaller dilemma than usual. Great
Expectations the novel, originally published in instalments, is fast paced,
there are attention grabbing twists, and Dickensian characters, with their odd,
visual mannerisms, are well-suited to film. So the pitfalls are shallower than
usual – but they still exist. Director Mike Newell has surrendered to temptation
and sexed up the action, so we’ve got a gruesomely burnt body and masses of extra,
aimless menace. The stand-out performances are Holliday Grainger’s sultry but
vulnerable Estella, and the Magwitch of Ralph Fiennes’, who capably surpasses
Robert de Niro’s 1998 portrayal. But the interpretation of Miss Havisham is a squandered
chance. Helena Bonham-Carter relishes playing flamboyant half-mad icons so the archetypal
character of Miss Havisham should have been a triumph. But a curiously flat
performance turns that initial excitement as stale and dusty as Miss Havisham’s
ancient wedding cake. The greatest disappointment, though, is also the most fatally
fundamental. Pip needs to be likeable enough that we forgive him for his shameless
social climbing and abandonment of his decent but embarrassing friends. But he
is too driven, and the viewer never really wills him towards a happy outcome.
Nonetheless, there is enough here to entertain: fans of literary exactitude
will be reasonably gratified whilst newcomers and radicals will still be
enthused.

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

Having so recently
written about Marlowe’s Jew of Malta,
there is no need to rehearse the relationship between the two, though it is
worth emphasizing again their paradoxical performance history in recently
years. Marlowe’s play was originally called The
Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta, but is now usually performed as a dark
comedy; Shakespeare’s play was originally The
Comedy of the Merchant of Venice, but is now usually (always?) performed as
a tragedy (with occasional comic elements). The transformations reflect our
changed attitudes and the problematization of race in the modern era. Marlowe’s
Jew is so irredeemably bad that we can only read the portrayal ironically;
Shakespeare’s Jew is treated so badly that we can only read the portrayal
tragically. Whether or not the problematic elements were there in the original productions
is another matter (though I’m inclined to believe they were). In this respect,
both recent RSC productions have trod familiar ground: we sympathise with both
Jewish characters and feel discomfort at the behaviour of most of the avowedly
Christian characters. Polly Findlay, directing the current RSC production,
takes the same familiar track as, for example, the 2004 film starring Al
Pacino. Shylock has an understated but solid nobility, Gratiano is an oaf,
Bassiano is shallow and Antonio is a bigot. But though it covers familiar
ground, it glides over it very elegantly.

The Duke and Antonio

One of the most arresting
features of this production is the stunning set design by Johannes Schütz.
There are none of the clichéd accoutrements for plays set in Venice (Gondola
moorings, the Rialto painted in the background and so on), and neither is it
conventionally modern. The stage floor and back wall of the stage are covered
in metallic reflective tiles, making the theatre seem much bigger than it is.
The only piece of scenery is a large metal ball hanging from a wire. Reflected
on the back wall, it is perhaps meant to evoke the three-ball symbol of money
lenders associated with the Medici. The cast sit on stools at either side of
the stage (being a bit of a thickie, I initially thought this was a new space
the RSC had set aside for people with mobility problems). The stage is spare
but not stark, because light and shadow are bounced around erratically by the
reflective tiles, accentuating both the lighter and darker episodes in the
drama. At the conclusion, candles are placed on the stage, beautifully realising
the magical unreality of Belmont; and throughout the play the musical
accompaniment, evoking haunting renaissance church music, helps to underline a
rising atmosphere of heavy unease.

One disappointing aspect
of the play is the costumes. The actors wear modern dress, which makes sense
(Elizabethan dress would probably not suit the nightclub feel of the stage),
but the outfits are either tediously drab (Antonio, Lorenzo, Bassiano) or
garishly ‘street’ (Gratiano). In either approach, the results are bland and
often ill-fitting, completely ill-suited (bad pun intended) to the Venetian
setting, in which glamour, even an understated or decaying glamour, might have
worked better.

As the audience enter,
Antonio stands alone on the stage. Only after a few minutes, does it become
clear that he weeps. At first, this seems to humanise Antonio. Much more so
than the hard but melancholy Antonio of Jeremy Irons in the 2004 film, Jamie
Ballard’s Antonio might at last be a character we connect emotionally connect
with. This intriguing approach (a likeable Antonio!) might cast a penetrating light
on the relationship between Shylock and Antonio, but it is quickly and
disappointingly stubbed out. Soon after, Antonio is hard and unattractive,
whilst being at times frighteningly close to a nervous breakdown. Perhaps the
director thought that taking two new approaches to Antonio would be too much
for the audience to take, because she does make clear (does she ever!) that the
love between Antonio and Bassiano goes far beyond even the strongest
heterosexual friendship. By keeping Antonio both gay and un-likeable, we end up
with both the gayest character, as well as the character played by a black
actor (Gratiano), being the most bigoted.

The sparseness of the
stage decoration helps to emphasise the moments of extreme physicality. Jamie
Ballard’s convulsive torment in the moments before his expected execution is
intense, but the most shocking moment of the play occurs when Antonio tells
Shylock to ‘lend it rather as to thine enemy’, taking the menace to a new level
as he grabs Shylock by the throat and spits three times into his face. Besides
Antonio and Shylock, Ken Nwosu does well in the lesser role of Gratiano and Patsy
Ferran as Portia is also excellent, although perhaps not really beautiful
enough for the part. Her ‘which the merchant and which the Jew’ line, played
for laughs as she says it facing the two men, one in a skullcap, allowed for a
moment of brotherhood between Shylock and Antonio, as both roll their eyes at the
idiocy of the young jurist sent to decide their case. Tim Samuels is a riotous
and riveting Launcelot Gobbo, almost singlehandedly putting the humour back
into a play that has largely lost it.

Makram J. Khoury

Makram J. Khoury as
Shylock is the standout performance, making up for the predictable
characterization and making the production truly memorable. The nobility of his
character is fully realised, but so too is his fragility. Dressed like
somebody’s grandfather, shuffling along and with shaking hands, his physical
weakness in contrast to the young hooligans of Venice helps to clarify the life
of communal contempt he stoically endures and the terrible vengeance he feels
entitles to take after the Christians have humiliated him and destroyed his family.
This solitary obduracy gains tragic grandeur combined with his physical
frailty. We cannot get around the fact that killing a person for not paying a
debt is bad. But so too is Shylock’s treatment by the Venetians. The laws of
Venice are his only chance to attain a semblance of justice and that justice is
not only taken away, but new injustices are heaped upon him. When Shylock’s
justice is denied, we see the limits of state sanctioned equality. No matter
how cosmopolitan the laws of Venice claim to be, Jews like Shylock will never be
equals as long as men like Antonio call the shots.

Wednesday, 22 April 2015

Review: Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, RSC at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Christopher Marlowe’s Jew of Malta was perhaps the most
popular of the 1590s, but for a modern viewer, the issue of the play’s overt
anti-Semitism pushes itself forward as the most pressing concern. After the
Holocaust, how it could it not? And the resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe today
only adds to our unease about a play in which the Jewish anti-hero is such an
outrageously roguish mass-murderer. The similarities and dissimilarities to
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice are
worth considering. Both Marlowe’s Barabas and Shakespeare’s Shylock are
unpopular, miserly businessmen. However, Barabas is a pantomime figure,
whereas Shylock is a more rounded character who seems to have a life beyond the
play. Barabas’ boastfulness and failure are typical of the villains in
traditional English ‘Vice’ plays. Marlowe adds a perceived Machiavellian
self-interest to Barabas, but this is complementary to the villain rather than
a departure. Shakespeare gives Shylock sympathetic lines, such as the ‘Hath not
a Jew Eyes?’ speech, whilst still giving him detestable qualities, which makes
him seem much more human and ‘real’ than Barabas. Still, there may be a little
more to the Jew of Malta – both in
terms of warming our attitude to Barabas and in terms of themes which extend
beyond the play’s crude anti-Semitism. This RSC production is a success in
bringing both aspects to the audience’s attention.

Fernese

As the title suggests, the play is
set on Malta, a largely Christian community with a Jewish minority, governed by
the Knights of St John but nominally ruled and threatened by the growing menace
of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. After neglecting to pay tribute to their Turkish
overlords, an Ottoman fleet arrives to demand ten years’ worth of unpaid tribute.
The Christian governor, Fernese, calls the island’s Jewish merchants to a
meeting and delivers an ultimatum: turn over 50% of their wealth to the government,
convert to Christianity and pay nothing, or lose everything. The other Jews
agree to hand over half their wealth but Barabas, the wealthiest man on the
island, refuses and so loses everything. In vengeance, Barabas engineers a feud
between the governor’s son and his friend in which they are both slain. This leads
to further crimes; including the poisoning of an entire nunnery (including his
daughter Abigail), the murder of a friar, the framing of another friar for
murder and the betrayal of the island to the Turks. Finally, Barabas even betrays
the Turks but improvidently trusts Fernese and ends up himself betrayed to a
grisly death.

The prologue, spoken by
‘Machiavel’, asks us to watch sympathetically the doings of his friend Barabas
but, as many modern versions have emphasised, the most successful Machiavellian
in the play is the arch hypocrite Fernese, who betrays his alliance with the
Turks and in the end betrays Barabas, whilst accusing Barabas of treachery. One
area where Fernese’s Machiavellianism falls down is his leaving Barabas alive after
confiscating his property (as well as the other Jews who have lost half their
wealth). The Prince says men will
more easily forgive the murder of their father than the theft of their wealth and
Barabas spells out the Machiavellian sentiment when he says that ‘I esteem the
injury far less to take the lives of miserable men than be the causers of their
misery’. Barabas can be Machiavellian at times, especially in the use of
deception to achieve his aims, but he is far from perfect. In the end, in
possibly the least psychologically realistic part of an often psychologically
unrealistic play, Barabas trusts Fernese. In this production, Barabas’
explanatory soliloquy for this strange about face is put instead into the mouth
of Abigail’s ghost/hallucination, which both humanises Barabas (is she the
personification of his guilt, the personification of a subconscious desire to
die?) and makes more believable the absurd and un-Machiavellian reasoning for
trusting a man he has so badly harmed.

Barabas is converted

The prologue’s claim that ‘there is
no sin but ignorance’ is given extra emphasis in this production by giving it
both at the very beginning and then repeating it in its usual place slightly
later on. The effect is to underline the anti-religious aspect of the play,
which in itself take something away from the anti-Jew angle. If Marlowe was
accusing all of ignorance, and including all religions in that accusation, then
the specific aspects of anti-Judaism are simply facets of a broader assault
taking in Christianity too. One has to be sceptical that the original audience
would have viewed it that way (or the majority of them at any rate), but this
interpretation does make the play more palatable to a modern, more secular
audience, used to the anti-religious musings of Dawkins & co. Marlowe uses
complex ironies to devastating effect, as in Fernese’s hypocritical exclamation
that ‘covetousness, oh ‘tis a monstrous sin’ as he steals Barabas’ property.
Even the friars argue about who will get Barabas’ wealth, and one exclaims upon
Abigail’s death, ‘Ay, and a virgin too, that grieves me most’, suggesting that
Ithamore may have been right when he said ‘hath not the nuns fine sport with
the friars now and then?’ Friar Jacomo (Matthew Kelly) and Friar Barnadine
(Geoffrey Freshwater) are excellent – slimy, smirking, seedy and greedy.

The current production makes Barabas
more sympathetic by having him enter holding baby, leading ceremonial march of
Jewish men, and singing (I think) a Hebrew lullaby. Likewise, before the
madness of his vengeance takes control, his relationship with his daughter
Abigail is both warm and realistic. Barabas’ vengeance stems from what appears
to be almost a nervous breakdown in this version, brilliantly portrayed by Jasper
Britton, whose complex and charismatic Barabas is outstanding. In contrast, the
original text makes the change less comprehensible: Barabas begins as a
contemptible Jew and then becomes a rampaging pantomime villain. Shylock’s
resentment is realised much more fully. Shylock realises he is hated by the
Venetians (‘I am not bid for love’), so his anger (‘thou call’dst me dog before
thou hadst a cause’) is understandable (especially when is tipped over the edge
by the elopement of his daughter with his ducats). Barabas’ justifications are
less clear-cut (though having all of your wealth confiscated because of your
race and religion is hardly a trivial matter), but this RSC adaptation
accentuates the daily humiliations poured on Barabas by his Christian
neighbours, ranging from mocking laughter, to spitting on him, to physical
violence. All this serves to make us sympathise with Barabas. Likewise, Barabas’
joyful, cheeky laughter on seeing Abigail dressed as a fake nun and laughing
like a schoolboy with Ithamore (admittedly after wiping out a nunnery) is
endearing. And, though evil, he is at least multi-talented: miser, murderer,
trader, engineer, governor, lautist. Barabas is simply too immoral to be real,
and has no problems pretending to convert to Christianity to further his ends,
whereas for Shylock conversion is a real punishment. Barabas is closest to
Richard III – except he has more justification for his hatred and he is a lot
funnier in the way he goes about his vengeance, like the House of Cards’ Frank Underwood on coke.

Nevertheless, Barabas is a
caricature of everything anti-Semites accused the Jews of doing, which makes
him much less subtle than Shylock. It is tempting to think that these traits
were played up to play them down, in effect to be such a parody of anti-Jewish
tropes that the anti-Semitic tropes appear nonsensical to any sane observer.
This might be the case or it might not (it doesn’t take much research to
discover that anti-Semites today seem to seriously entertain some absurd beliefs
about Jews). Still, perhaps carried away on a wave of Barabas’ charisma or
suffering from a surfeit of post-modern irony, I don’t think Barabas’
confession to Ithamore is supposed to be taken seriously:

As
for myself, I walk abroad o’nights

And
kill sick people groaning under walls:

Sometimes
I go about and poison wells…

Did the original audience believe
such wild libels or, like the Swan Theatre’s twenty-first century audience, did
they think that Barabas was taking advantage of anti-Jewish gullibility (in
this case to impress an anti-Christian Muslim)? In other places, Barabas does
use others’ preconceptions of Jewish difference for his own ends (e.g. saying
that Abigail’s weeping over an unhappy engagement is really a Jewish custom).
Ithamore responds with his own tall tales of anti-Christian atrocities –
although in the age of IS, perhaps I should not be so quick to discount their
intended earnestness.

Ithamore

Marlowe was writing in the English
morality play tradition and, although he introduced some innovations in melding
this genre with that of tragedy, and in adding the heavy dose of dark humour,
his characters remained as representations lessons or types, rather than
people. Shakespeare took the Marlovian original theme, and enhanced it using
folk tales, classical allusions and techniques and a greater emphasis on
well-rounded characters, in a fusion of English and Renaissance attributes to
create something new and brilliant. So the humanity in this production usually
comes from the talent of the actors. Andy Apollo as Ludowick is suitably posh
and irritating as the governor’s son – ensuring we had no sympathy for his
death. Colin Ryan as Don Mathias is also irritating, but too boyish and not
attractive enough to be an authentic love interest for the beautiful Abigail
(Catrin Stewart). Lanre Malalou acted well as Ithamore but he played it too
slavish, too damaged, as if he has suffered a lifetime of abuse and slavery:
facial tics, stooping, stuttering, but he was only just enslaved, according to
the Spanish admiral he was captured shortly before being sold on Malta. Either
they have seen ‘slave’ and fitted all our modern guilt and hang-ups into the
term, or the actor is a believer in Homer’s idea that Zeus ‘takes away half of
a man's virtue, when the day of slavery comes upon him’ (Odyssey). The problem
was the approach rather than the technique. The battle scenes were somewhat
weak. Over-stylized and choreographed, they are like a line dance or something
the Jets and the Sharks might get up to in West
Side Story.

Overall, the Swan’s Jew of Malta is highly recommended – it is brisk, there is plenty
of action, the play’s timely themes are cleverly engaged with, and this
performance uses a high level of physicality to highlight nuance (rather than
to simply get cheap laughs, although there are plenty of laughs too). The
acting is of a high quality and the director’s interpretation has reached the
perfect balance between black humour and tragedy. After such a spirited and
thoughtful adaptation of Marlowe’s great Jewish comic tragedy, expectations are
high and mounting for the RSC’s latest production of Shakespeare’s great,
Jewish, tragic comedy in May.